No Matter How Far You Go
by kenziescott54
Summary: This maze will choke me. I have been here, in the underground place that keeps me safe, for years. Herbology Assignment for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Submission for March Event, and gift fic for MaryandMerlin.
**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter.**

* * *

This maze will choke me.

I have been here, in the underground place that keeps me safe, for years. The dark and the dampness and the constant drip, drip, drip have become my only companions. I have not seen the light of day for so long that I am sure my eyes would be blinded if I were to look at it.

I am barely a man anymore.

Most wizards do not know about the underground maze that connects all important Wizarding places. It starts in Knockturn Alley, but if you have the patience to travel it for long enough, it will lead you anywhere. It is bigger than thought can conceive, older than memory can reach, and stronger than any human that wanders into its depth.

It was made by wizards, strong wizards of centuries past, and their magic lingers in the twisting, turning tunnels. Most humans, muggle or otherwise, that make their way into this place do not come out alive or sane. They are driven mad here in the choking dark.

On my first night, I tried, as all wizards might, to use the Lumos charm for light. But the dark, no doubt as charged with magic as my own spell, immediately came and swallowed up that little light.

The only thing that makes lasting light down here is fire. So I light a candle sometimes, when I feel as if I must see something that will let me know that I haven't imagined that world overhead.

Down here, in the maze of tunnels, I am safe. I have been safe here for years.

But I am also choked.

The maze hides my face and my identity from the world; I am just another gutter rat, seeking refuge in the tunnels. But I have been here too long; I've begun to wish for the one thing that I can't have.

I want out. Not during the night, which is when I normally venture from the maze to steal food when I am faint from hunger, or clothing when mine is too worn to wear any longer; I want to see the sunlight and feel its heat on my face.

But I can't. There's a reason that I stay down here, even when all the other people that I know lurk here in the dark can venture up into the light.

People up there know my face. They know my name, though they don't say it anymore because they've given me a new one. People all throughout the Wizarding world know what I have done, and there isn't a single one of them that wouldn't turn me in the second they saw me if they knew who I was.

So I must stay down here, away from the light and away from all human contact.

* * *

I thought that I could forget about the sun.

There have been times, when I was alone in the festering dark and close to breaking, when I thought that I had forgotten. And yet the very fact that I was aware of forgetting meant that I had not truly forgotten.

There is a part of me that still remembers the man that walked aboveground with his head held up and his step firm, a part of me that remembers the smile of a girl and the touch of her hand.

But I can't afford to remember those days. Those would only remind me of the man that was, the man that died when _I_ was born.

That man is no more; a new man has taken residence in his body; that new man is me.

* * *

I think of her.

Now that I am mad enough to want to return to the world above where the other man died, the man that I once was, I think of her.

I loved her more than I loved myself. I wanted nothing but the best that the world had to offer, but only if that would make her happy. I wanted to keep her safe and protect her and give her everything I had.

But I was poor. I was poorer than poor. I had nothing.

I had nothing, and she had nothing, and together, it seemed, we had less than nothing.

But we had everything, because we loved each other.

The strength of what I felt for her can not be described with words. It never could. When I try to describe it to myself, I cannot even form the thoughts to comprehend what it is that we had. We called it love, but the most ordinary people can love (or so I have heard).

In that case, it was not love. It was so much deeper. Because it was anything but ordinary.

My heart, my heart was made out of nothing but her, my strength was meaningless except when it was of value to her, I hated everything about me unless it pleased her. And she was sweeter than honey, better than fine wine; every word that she said to me was filled with sweet wonder, because she loved me, _me._

That was what made that man. The other man, the one that walked above. _She_ made him.

* * *

What did I do to deserve this solitude?

I don't think it matters anymore what I did. Some people call it desperate, some call it wicked. I call it the past, and I do not think about it anymore. It is hard to think of anything, hard to keep my head clear; I know that my mind is deteriorating, and things that I once knew are slipping from my memory. I can no longer remember the names of certain animals, or the street where I grew up, or any of those things.

Only the constant aching for food, aching for light, and aching for her.

Those are the things that have been my constant companions for all these years.

* * *

We loved each other unconditionally, no matter how hard things grew. When I began to fall into trouble, and all the people that I called friends turned their backs on me, she still loved me fiercely. She sustained me; she was my lifeline.

I know that if I were to return, no matter what the world said of me, she would accept me just the same, just as she always promised she would. She and I had little use for other people when I was the other man, the one that was worthy of her.

* * *

When I told her I was leaving, I told her that I was doing to keep her safe. I can still remember her screaming, her clinging to me as if she would never let go.

I said I was doing it to keep her safe, and that was part of the reason I left; but the greater part of it was that I knew I was no longer worthy of her. I knew, like I knew the lines of my palm, that she loved me just as much as I loved her; but I also knew that she did not deserve to love someone as broken and scarred and pitiful and useless as the man I was becoming.

In the end, when she realized that my mind was made up, she told me that no matter how long I was away, no matter how far I went, no matter if we never saw each other again, she would love me just as much as she did the day I left her door. I carry those words with me every day, carry the memory of her tearstained face and the burning kiss she left on my lips.

* * *

I open my eyes.

The maze is the same. I can hear the drip, drip of water coming down the walls. I can smell the rot and the mildew. I can hear the echoes of things moving in the tunnels far away - rats, maybe, or people. Those of us that live down here in the tunnels avoid each other, even though we know of each other's presence; I have never known why, but I keep to the rules of the maze.

I lie on the cold floor, listening. The maze is the same, it is always the same, but something is different. Something is speeding up the beating of my heart. Something is making the old man come alive within me; I can feel him stirring.

I sit up.

I used to feel like this only when she was near me.

I stumble to my feet.

Is it possible that, after all this time, the maze has brought me back to her? It plays strange tricks on a man's mind and on his intentions, but no magic can reverse the effect she has always had on me. I know that, somewhere above me, her feet are walking.

Like a man possessed, I get to my feet and move for the nearest exit. I am fully aware of what I am doing, but I cannot help myself any longer. I resisted this long, but only because I did not feel her presence. There is no keeping me away from her now. Even if it is only to get a glimpse of her face, to perhaps hear her voice; I must see her, I must.

No matter how far away I go, no matter if we never see each other again, she will always love me. She said so.

The tunnel exits are hard to see if you are unused to looking for them. I hold up my ever burning candle to the walls until I find the thin lines running across the walls; then I extinguish the candle and push against the door. Blackness surrounds me as I slip into the stairwell and begin to climb, up, up, up.

The feeling grows stronger.

My head bumps against the top of the stairwell and I push gently. All the tunnel exits are the same, and I know by now how to exit silently. I raise the top of the trap door.

Light floods into the stairwell.

I stand there in pure amazement, the trap door cracked open above my head. I had forgotten how utterly and completely sunlight reveals everything; it is impossibly bright, it is impossibly warm, it is impossibly real, and it reminds me so much of her that for the first time in I know not how long, I laugh - a real, genuine laugh.

I have to wait for a very long time for my eyes to adjust to the light, but as I stand there, my mind is flooded with memories I didn't even know I had, brought back to me by the feeling of the sun on my skin. Most of them have to do with her, of course, but there are a few that do not. I remember being a child, in front of my old house, playing with my little sister in the shade of the trees because it was too hot to play in the sun.

I push the trap door up all the way. I am in the back of an alley, between to very tall, grimy buildings. I ease the door shut and stand still, raising my face to the sun.

The feeling of her presence grows stronger.

I follow my beating heart through the alley, thinking of nothing other than her. I do not think to hide my face, lest people know who I am; I do not think to stick to the shadows, lest people see me. For today, I am a man again, a man who can walk in the light of day and not be afraid or ashamed; and I am going to see the face of the woman that loves me.

I imagine her as I walk - her soft hair and how it felt in my hands, her gentle face, her beautiful eyes. My heart is full to bursting with my love for her.

I step out of the alley and there she is. She stands so that I can see her profile, but I recognize her.

She seems to be waiting for someone. As I approach, I see that she has lines underneath her eyes that weren't there before, and her hair is shorter and not so soft. She is so different, and yet she is still the same.

"Hermione," I say, and my voice is so hoarse from lack of use that no sound comes out.

I say it again, louder, and she turns just as I reach her side. She starts violently, and recoils as if she has seen something horrible.

"Wha...who...are you?" she gasps.

"It's me," I tell her, reaching for her hands. "It's Draco."

She gives a soft shriek and steps even further backwards, lifting her hands. " _Draco_?"

My eyes are fixed on her left hand; my breath is caught in my throat, and my heart feels as if it has stopped beating. A ring shines on her finger, a magnificent ring, the likes of which I could never have given her.

Someone, some vile man, has married her. Someone has taken her from me.

"You said you would always love me," I say, as if by saying the words I could undo the horrible, horrible truth.

"I was young," she says, backing away further. "And you were a conniving criminal. You deceived me."

"You loved me!" I cry. "I loved you!"

"You manipulated me," she says. "That wasn't love, Draco."

My world is crumbling around me. What is life, what is anything if she does not love me, if everything is a lie? I realize now as I look at her that the only reason I continued to live, even after I went into the maze, is because of her, because I knew that no matter how far I was from her she would love me.

She lied.

If she can lie, then there is no truth.

I stumble away from her, from the hideously different creature that wears her face. I am not aware of lifting the trap door and going back into the dark stairwell, but I know that I must have, because I find myself standing in the tunnel again with the candle lit. I find my fingers striking another match, and I do not blow this one out or hold it to my candle; I light something else, something different; I light the edge of my sleeve.

And when the pain and the heat have taken my senses away from me almost completely I think only of her and her betrayal, and no physical pain could ever rival what that makes me feel.

* * *

 **Herbology Assignement:** Write about someone feeling constricted by people or situations around them.

 **Extra Prompts used:**

(spell) Lumos/Lumos Solem

(word) maze

(environment) dark and damp (write about any location that could be described in this way)

(word) heat

(object) fire

(action) stealing

* * *

Gift for MaryandMerlin:

 **Pairing Prompt:** Draco/Hermione

 **Genre Prompt:** Angst

 **Word Prompt:** Past

* * *

 **March Event** : Genre: Angst


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